fety for the
non-Mohammedans increased accordingly.

In general Beirut was a rather quiet and safe place. The presence of an
American cruiser in the port had much to do with that. The American
sailors were allowed to come ashore three times a week, and they spent
their money lavishly. It was estimated that Beirut was getting more than
five thousand dollars a week out of them. But the natives were
especially impressed by the manliness and quick action of the American
boys. Frequently a few sailors were involved in a street fight with
scores of Arabs, and they always held their own. In a short time the
Americans became feared, which in the Orient is equivalent to saying
they were respected. The Beirut people are famous for their fighting
spirit, but this spirit was not manifested after a few weeks of intimate
acquaintance with the American blue-jackets.

My inspection of the devastation caused by the locusts completed, I
returned home. The news that greeted me there was alarming. I must
narrate with some detail the events which finally decided me to leave
the country. About one hour's ride on horseback from our village lives a
family of Turkish nobles, the head of which was Sadik Pasha, brother of
the famous Kiamil Pasha, several times Grand Vizier of the Empire.
Sadik, who had been exiled from Constantinople, came to Palestine and
bought great tracts of land near my people. After his death his
sons--good-for-nothing, wild fellows--were forced to sell most of the
estate--all except one Fewzi Bey, who retained his part of the land and
lived on it. Here he collected a band of friends as worthless as himself
and gradually commenced a career of plundering and "frightfulness" much
like that of the robber barons of mediaeval Germany. Before the
outbreak of the war he confined his attentions chiefly to the Arabs,
whom he treated shamefully. He raided cattle and crops and carried off
girls and women in broad daylight. On one occasion he stopped a wedding
procession and carried off the young bride. Then he seized the
bridegroom, against whom he bore a grudge, and subjected the poor
Bedouin to the bastinado until he consented to divorce his wife by
pronouncing the words, "I divorce thee," three times in the presence of
witnesses, according to Mohammedan custom. This Bedouin was the grandson
of the Sheikh Hilou, a holy man of the region upon whose grave the Arabs
are accustomed to make their prayers. But we villagers of Zicron-Jaco